


endless god breathing through me

by worry



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Depression, Episode: s01e12 Faith, Gen, Missing Scene, My City Now!, Near Death Experiences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 18:04:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16023134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worry/pseuds/worry
Summary: There's one question that strikes like electrocution--one underlined, underlying, unholy question--when Dean dies, who will pick up the shattered-soft pieces of the world? Who will plunge their hands into the consuming heart-pit of All That Is & who will pull out a better universe? Who will do the taming?Trick question.The answer is that Dean does none of those, that Dean tarnishes everything he can dig his fingers into, so none of this fucking matters. He's going to die.(or: Sam says that Dean has been in the hospital for THREE DAYS before Dean checks himself out. Why don't we ever talk about that.)





	endless god breathing through me

There's one question that strikes like electrocution--one underlined, underlying, unholy question--when Dean dies, who will pick up the shattered-soft pieces of the world? Who will plunge their hands into the consuming heart-pit of All That Is & who will pull out a better universe? Who will do the taming?

 

**Trick question.** The answer is that Dean does none of those, that Dean tarnishes everything he can dig his fingers into, so none of this fucking matters. He’s going to die.

 

Sam is—capable. 

 

Sam is. Sam  _ is.  _ Everything. The meat of existence’s wholeness, wrapped up in human form; skin and bone; the truth, fragile-held glass hope. He still needs a bit of filing, but that’s the beauty of the storm; he can work with Sam’s wildness, knows that Sam will find their father, wishes visceral that he could do what Sam does. Before he dies he will imagine himself as Sam, standing up to the man who made his childhood body into a battleground---his body in armor, five years old, ten years old, twelve---his body weighed down by the responsibilities of the truth and God does he wish he could be

 

Sam, sometimes,

 

God. Sam can say  _ no.  _ Sam can fight for his normal, picket-fence life & _ get it.  _ And he’s stuck here, dying, because a monster triggered a massive heart attack in his war-tainted body. Of course he wants it. Of course he wants to die.

 

The hospital bed is rough & hard & he’s been sparring with the television for the past half hour— _ the most ridiculous things will entertain people, living blissfully unaware— _ and Sam walks in, and Dean wants it to be over now, wants his heart

 

to just give  **o u t**

 

because he knows that Sam will not give him this freedom. He can feel God’s breath scorch his neck. 

 

“Have you ever actually watched daytime TV?” he asks, his body wailing with ache. “It’s terrible.”

 

“I talked to your doctor,” Sam says, and nothing more, his eyelashes fluttering like wings to hold back the tears.

 

“That fabric softener teddy bear—oh, I’m gonna hunt that bitch down.”

 

“ _ Dean. _ ”

 

He turns the television off. He’s going to die. “Yeah,” Dean says, tasting the pain like blood in his mouth, feeling the pain

 

like Death’s hand on his skin. “Well. Looks like you’re gonna leave town without me.”

 

Here are Death’s hands, here are Dean’s hands, here is Dean’s heart & Dean’s soul & everything that Dean has ever killed, wrapped in shiny foil  _ amen, amen.  _ He’s trying to touch Death in itself and Death is reaching back, form inhuman & dangling & Dean imagines his own body decomposing, his skin & heart & filling sinking down into the Earth until he is one with some perception of God amen.

 

He doesn’t really believe, no. But he could. If he was given proof. It’s not too late.

 

“What are you talking about?” Sam asks, stopping Dean’s mind. “I’m not leaving you here.”

 

“You better take care of that car or I swear I’ll haunt your ass.”

 

“I don’t think that’s funny.”

 

“Oh, come on, it’s a little funny.”

 

Sam just won’t

 

leave

 

him.

 

“Look, Sammy, what can I say? It’s a dangerous gig, I drew the short straw. That’s it, end of story.”

 

“Don’t talk like that, alright? We still have options—”

 

“What  _ options? _ ” Dean snaps. “Burial or cremation. I know it’s not easy, but I’m gonna die. And you can’t stop it.”

 

Sam looks at him, oh, Sam  _ looks  _ at him and allows the vulnerability of a tear. “Watch me,” he says sharply, and turns on his heel to leave the room. He doesn’t understand. He just—he doesn’t understand.

 

* * *

 

 

The nurse assigned to him is named Samantha and Dean would think that’s hilarious if he wasn’t actually literally dying. She looks beautiful, he supposes; hair long and red and curled, green eyes ethereal, lips bright pink and glossed. Samantha is the kind of woman he would pursue under any other circumstance—flirt with in a dirty bar, meet on a hunting job and fix her right up, save her from the horrors of the world as the horrors of the world save him—but he’s dying. He’s dying. He’s dying. He’s dying. They all pity him; he doesn’t want  _ pity,  _ he wants it to be over. And then they’ll take his body away &  forget about him, Dean Winchester was just another patient, just another dead patient, lying d e a d in a hospital, Just Another. Something normal, someone with a normal life who gets sick & dies in a hospital like normal people do. Normal people, see, they die differently; they have the privilege of usually dying from mundane things, whereas people in this line of work - well. They die from monster-induced electrocutions. 

 

In the grand scheme of things— _ what  _ killed him doesn’t matter; what truly matters is that he dies and stays dead & _ God he craves it,  _ wonders what death is like. Do you fade out? Does everything stop around you, does the world go dark, do you feel at peace, are you finally

 

finally

 

finally

 

at peace? Is there really a little white light? Does your life really flash before your eyes? Will Dean see his own life, projected onto his eyelids, and make peace with it? Is there peace? Peace? Is there peace? Does peace exist? Is peace tangible? Is peace something that can be torn up & eaten, because that is all that Dean knows how to do? Can peace be shot at with a rifle? Can peace be set on fire & absorbed that way? Will Sam have to burn his body, just to make sure?

 

He looks down at his wrist and places two fingers over his veins, feels the blood pump weakly—

 

and Samantha walks in. Dean quickly disposes of the act, tries on neutrality.

 

“How are you feeling, Dean?” she asks, looking so kind that Dean can barely stomach it.

 

“Just peachy,” he responds. Maybe the nonchalance, he thinks, will speed up the process.

 

“You know,” she says softly, “we have people here who are trained to help those that are terminally ill cope with their situations—”

 

“No,” Dean interrupts, tightening his fists. “I mean… talking to some psychologist about my feelings isn’t exactly what I want to spend my time doing before I die.”

 

“What  _ do  _ you want to spend your time doing before you die, Dean?”

 

He stops, can feel himself rolling over the edges of consciousness, the ending boundaries of living; what  _ does  _ he want to do before he die? In such a dangerous line of work one would assume he has this planned out—his life, after all, is in danger every day, it’s a miracle that he’s survived  _ this long  _ & hasn’t killed himself either. There is an opportunity buried somewhere here, but Dean cannot seem to find it.

 

Several things scroll through his mind.

 

_ I want to feel loved again I want to find my father I want to let Sam know I love him I want to make an impact on the world I want to be capable of good I want to kill every monster on Earth I want to feel loved I want to love myself I want I want I want I want I want I I I I I. _

 

_ Want. _

 

_ I want. _

 

“Oh, y’know,” Dean says finally, faintly, unbroken, “just… watch some TV, drink a lot of coffee, relax, the usual.”

 

“That’s all?”

 

“Trust me, I crave simplicity.”

 

“Right.”

 

Dean sighs, imagines the air in his lungs like thick poison, thick poison, drowning him out, stopping

 

the unstoppable, ending the cruel beatings of the heart.

 

“Well,” Samantha says; it is obvious that her smile is forced. She pulls a small brochure out of her pocket and hands it to Dean, the attack apparently premeditated;  _ does Dean look like the kind of person who wants to talk about emotions?  _ “If you ever change your mind, here’s the information. The group meets every other day at 3:00 PM.”

 

“...Okay.”

 

“Do you need anything else?”

 

“No, I’m fine, thanks.”

 

Samantha turns to leave the room, but stops, her body hanging half-way out of the door. “If you need anything later,” she says, “you can press the nurse button on the remote.”

 

“I know…”

 

“Just making sure.”

 

Dean shrugs a half-smile and she leaves—Dean alone in the room again, Dean alone with his thoughts again, the decay of Dean’s body truly apparent again. The decay started before the electrocution, but it is only surfacing now. Dean cannot stop it. Dean cannot stop anything, not even his own life, and dying isn’t exactly an ideal situation but

 

it is the one that he deserves. Dean Winchester, reduced to ashes. Atonement.

 

* * *

 

_ He’s in the house with Sam, and their mother is burning on the ceiling. He’s watching the woman who loves him bright & unconditional dying on the top of their house & the noises of Sam’s cries grate into his mind & their mother is dead & their father places Sam and Sam’s world and Sam’s life and Sam’s entire holy loving loved existence into _

 

_ Dean’s arms and says  _ **_go now_ ** _ and Dean follows the order because even at four years old he knows how to follow orders and be a good boy but their MOTHER is DYING and SAM is CRYING and the world is getting a little bit smaller and Dean: _

 

_ runs. Outside. Watches the house burn slowly. Watches love burn, slowly. Slowly and their mother’s body is charred blackbrown sick _

 

_ somewhere in the remains  _

 

_ oh. _

 

_ And then— _

 

_ And then Dean is looking down, watching his brother cry and cry and cry, his small frame so innocent, so fresh & pure & pure & pure & he can feel every cell in his body bbbbbbbbbuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn _

 

_ pulse, pulse _

 

_ & Mary Winchester is standing beneath him, blood dripping down her forehead, her blonde angelic hair red-stained. She’s screaming _

 

_ DEAN _

_ dean _

_ DEAN _

_ dean _

_ D  _

_ E _

_ A _

_ N _

 

_ and then she picks up Sam & meets her husband outside as the house rattles around Dean and collapses around Dean. As Dean becomes the house, rotten. _

 

_ Oh— _

 

“Dean.”

 

It’s a new nurse, this time---apparently Samantha went home---and the man has one hand resting on the side of Dean’s face, the other on his wrist---same pulse spot---unholy & Dean bolts up stricken, untangles himself from the nurse.

 

“I’m---I’m fine.”

 

“Are you sure?” he asks. “Your heart rate increased significantly while you were asleep. Was it a nightmare?”

 

“I guess,” Dean responds, entire being trembling in the winds of his mind. 

 

“Okay.” A cough. “Well, it seems to be normal now… I’ll let you get back to sleep. I’ll be right out there if you need anything.”

 

_ I do need something,  _ Dean thinks,  _ I need to die. I just need to die already. _

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> "Overflowing senses  
> Heightened awareness  
> I hear my blood flow  
> I feel its caress  
> Whispering cosmos  
> Talking right to me  
> Unlimited, endless  
> God breathing through me" - Macro / Depeche Mode
> 
> I'm trying to figure out if I should continue this. Thoughts appreciated. Also, kudos + comments highly appreciated if you liked it! Thank you:)


End file.
